The New Hacker's Dictionary - 3rd Edition

This book is more then terms and descriptions. It's chalk full of hacker lore and history

I would normally not consider buying something named "The New Hacker's Dictionary", as the first thing that comes to mind is "drivel for the stupid masses". However, I must say that I was wrong. The "dictionary" is actually by an author who is obviously familiar with the computing days of old - the definitions aren't idiotic new-age garbage, but rather words that most "hackers"/"computer nerds" will recognize - while the regular folk will not. The book doesn't discuss words like "click", "webpage" and any other "popular" computing terms - instead it's words like "foobar", "warez d00dz", "flipflop", etc...If you're at all interested in classic computing culture, this book is something I feel every computer nerd should have (you fit the description if, among other things, you like monty python and your idea of the perfect evening is spending it at home programming, with occasional breaks to watch the X-Files).If you're a soccermom, or a script/warez kiddie, this book is not for you. You probably won't understand it, and will certainly not appreciate it.

Remember that "new" is a relative term. Relative to, say, the geologic time-frame, this is surely The NEW Hacker's Dictionary. However, relative to its subject matter - computer technology - it's "middle-aged" at best. Last updated in 1996, it predates most of the technology that is in use today, and as a result, the terminology defined here is more of historic interest. That's not to say it's uninteresting - there are some terms defined that are still current, and much of the out-dated material provides interesting back-story to present technology. Best of all, though, is the subtle humor that pervades the text.

I was a little disappointed because of how dated the terms and definitions are. It's a great book if you want to understand the language and history of developers in the 90's, but doesn't reflect the way developers (at least those who cut their teeth much later) speak in 2018.

Packed full of lost jargon and IT idioms. As the Information Technology field ages many newcomers don't know the history behind common slang. This book has them all. A must have in every grizzly old IT guys bench.

This is indeed one of the few dictionaries that you can read from cover to cover and still have lots of fun. It shows its age but many terms are still in use today. The dictionary reflects the mindset, culture and a short history of the hacking. You can think of it as the perfect companion to Steven Levy's 'Hackers' book.

Funny and entertaining! I like that words are cross-referenced so you can look up more funny definitions.

Every dev/programmer NEEDS to read this. For the history and for the humor!

The author has an unhealthy fetish for UNIX and open source, but still provides a fascinating and silly nostalgia trip for computer nerds of all ages.

It is a very nice computer hacking information container.Probably if you are already deep in computer knowledge, you may know 70% percent of the book, but there are still a lot of new concepts worth knowing.Nice